


Scorched

by Meero94



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Post-Canon, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 14:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2511254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meero94/pseuds/Meero94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philip stopped crying after that first night. The tears always made their way into his throat and stopped him from breathing, but they never gave him the satisfaction of reaching his eyes. He believed that he'd never cry again, really. </p><p>So you could imagine his disbelief at being finally brought to tears by a <em>toaster </em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scorched

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a tumblr prompt by the lovely iam---groot, they asked me for an angst-ridden Philip conflicted over a toaster and I really liked the idea of it. I really hope this delivers.

He couldn’t cry. Not since the night she died. It felt as if his entire universe had shrunk into a single moment of time and stopped there. As if his ribcage decided to stop holding his chest together, and collapsed atop his heart instead. He remembered the day with excruciating details; from the moment she was stabbed to the one she was announced dead –for the second and final time.

His world stopped there and hasn’t moved since.

Philip hated feeling heavy. He hated staring at something for long minutes without seeing it. Hated the chocked feeling in his throat and the empty space in his heart. He spent hours travelling the streets of his small town, looking for a head of dark hair and a bright smile, only to remember in horror that the person he looked for no longer existed. He usually headed back home when that happened, with dragging feet and a bowed head, and stared at his walls for hours.

The empty stares went on for weeks, and Philip could tell that his mother was only getting more worried. She glanced at him with pity in her eyes and spoke to him slowly. She patted his shoulder whenever she passed him, and he even heard her checking on him every other night.

He also caught her speaking about him to Mrs. Walker on one memorable morning.

“I’m telling you,” His mother whispered, unaware of Philip standing in the kitchen’s doorway. “He barely eats. Doesn’t sleep. I thought I knew ‘bout all this but I really don’t. Your –oh how rude of me. I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t.”

“No, no, go on,” Kieren’s mother encouraged, mouth set in a hesitant smile. “It’s alright. I’m the one who told you I’d listen, after all.”

“Well, it’s just. Your Kieren, I mean, he… you know,” His mum paused and Philip had the strong urge to barge in and shout at her. “Is this how he was like? _Before?_ ”

Philip didn’t allow the conversation to go any further. He walked noisily into the kitchen, startling the two women into jumping out of their seats.

“Oh, you’re here!” Philip’s mother exclaimed, as if he hadn’t been living in the same house as she his entire life. “I thought you were in your room.” The _staring at your walls_ went unspoken.

“No, I’m going out. Needed some money.” Philip lied. He had no friends in town –pity friends like Kieren and Simon didn’t really count- and therefore no place to go.

“Oh? What for?” His mom asked, even as she reached for her wallet. Kieren’s mum watched the exchange in silence, her eyes looking somewhat far away.

“I’m buying a new toaster.”

The words left his mouth without his permission, and he wanted nothing more than to punch the wall, shouting at how stupid he was. Why say that. Out of every damn excuse he could have used. A toaster. A fucking toaster. To replace the one he broke while _she_ stood there and watched. _Fucking idiot._

“Oh… well, that sounds efficient. Yes?” His mum tried for a smile but fell short. She handed him the money with great reluctance and worry itched to her features. He still felt like shouting at her.

“Sure. Efficient. I’ll just –“ Philip made a quick motion towards the door, nodded to both women, and fled the kitchen.

Now he had to wander around town aimlessly some more, then come back home with a lame excuse as to why he hadn’t bought a stupid toaster. Without mentioning to his mother that the mere thought of shopping for one made his heart ache, because that might be the final straw to convince his mum he had officially lost it. Which he might have, come to think of it.

 _Marvelous,_ Philip thought to himself as he set out of his house. _Amy would laugh till she cries if she hears about this. ‘First break the toaster and then cry over it... Sure it’ll forgive you then, dummy.’_ He thought she’d say.

Except that Amy was dead and couldn’t really say anything, while Philip was left here alone, making up conversations in his head and feeling nostalgic over broken toasters.

He really hated himself sometimes.

*****

He didn’t know how or when it happened but, somehow, Philip ended up standing in the parking lot of the only shopping place in town. He couldn’t recall making the decision to walk there, or even the process of getting there at all, but here he was anyway. Thanks to his traitorous feet and stupid clouded head.  

He let out a long sigh and walked into the store, thinking that he might as well be done with it.

He decided to grab the first toaster he sees and walk out, brands and expenses be damned. He didn’t even need a bloody new toaster to begin with. The machine was evil and useless and would burn his bread and his hand and – _and.._

_“We could buy you a new one,” Amy grinned, her hand held tightly in his while she used the other one to shove more popcorn into her mouth. “We’ll tell it that it won’t face the last one’s fate. Would make it feel safer that way. Maybe it won’t burn you then.”_

_“I’m not sure why you’re so keen on buying me a new toaster in the first place.” Philip shook his head, awed at Amy’s thought process and swift change of topics. They were discussing stuffed animals not two minutes ago._

_“Oi! I witnessed the murder of its sister, didn’t I? Didn’t even try to move and help! I don’t want toasters to hate me for the rest of my life, what’s with me warming up again and all. Might actually get some use of them in the near future.” Amy told him, all in one smiling breath. She continued licking at her fingers in pure wonder as she talked, still disbelieving of the fact that she could taste things again. Philip thought that she looked both ridiculous and beautiful. He might have fallen a little more in love with her and her stupid impulses then._

_“Fine,” He nodded with a tiny smile, swinging their hands between them as they walked. “We get a new toaster, but you’re doing the work. I’m not going near the thing again.”_   

_“Wouldn’t want you to anyway;” Amy laughed and nudged his shoulder with hers. “You’d terrify it into breaking itself or you. Would be tragic,” She paused for a moment in thought then looked up at him with childlike excitement. “Let’s go get one now!”_

_“Right after I win you a stuffed animal.” Philip stated in put upon confidence. He saw Amy eyeing the stuffed tiger earlier and really wanted to get it for her. A stuffed tiger to impress his undead-kind-of-human-again girlfriend. Philip felt a silly smile gracing his face just thinking of Amy’s reaction._

_“Oh, my hero! Get a move on then. Go win me things!”_

_He did win the tiger. But it was the toaster that they never got around to buying._

Philip stood in front of a shelf full of shiny kitchen appliances, and felt bile rise in his throat. He couldn’t figure out why the memory chose this exact second to come to him –after weeks of being repressed- but he didn’t appreciate its visit. He wanted to erase that day from his mind. He wanted to forget the blind hope, the unassuming laughter, and the feel of warming hands in his own. He wanted to kick himself for taking a walk before heading to the store. Maybe if they had gone right then to buy the bloody toaster Maxine wouldn’t have gotten to them. Maybe Amy would have stayed alive. Maybe they would have spent the past few weeks together. Learning and relearning each other, growing accustomed to holding hands in public the way Simon and Kieren now did. Maybe Philip would have been as happy as they seemed to be together.

_Maybe_

_Maybe_

_Maybe…._

He snatched a silvery toaster off of the shelf and ran for the register.

*****

It said a lot about his life, Philip thought, that he ended up seeing Kieren and his boyfriend that evening. Philip hadn’t ran into them in a while, but it figured that he’d catch sight of them today of all days when he was holding himself together by a mere thread.

Kieren had tried, as did everyone else, to talk to Philip in the days following Amy’s funeral. He was a good guy and he didn’t look at Philip with pity –well, not _only_ with pity, at least. Kieren seemed to want to help genuinely and see if Philip was doing well, but the other guy couldn’t take it. The ghost of Amy hung all over Kieren Walker, from the way she used to call him her BDFF to the chasm of sadness in Kieren’s eyes when he mentioned her name, and it was all too much for Philip. He couldn’t look at Kieren without thinking back to a cold clinic and a bloodied bed. Looking at Kieren was too hard, and seeing him with Simon, the way they looked at each other, the silent comfort Simon offered with his presence, was even harder. Philip knew that his attitude was pitiful but he hated being around them. Hated being reminded of what could have been. Whenever he saw them, hands clasped lightly or shoulders pumping as they walked, he turned around and walked the other way.

He didn’t do that today. He simply passed them without so much as a second glance, and ignored Kieren’s worried gaze that was surely fixed upon him.

He just needed to get home and sleep.

*****

Philip spent that night in the kitchen. A colorful carton lying at his feet and some bread laid out on the table. He plugged the new machine into an outlet, then proceeded to stare at it for half an hour. He realized that in any other situation, he’d look like a lunatic and the laughing stock of his town. Maybe he _was_ a lunatic and a laughing matter now, but he was also pathetic and sad and on the verge of tears for the first time in long _long_ weeks.

He tried to keep his breaths even and quiet as he placed the first piece of toast into the machine. His hands trembled and he almost laughed at the silliness of the situation, because here he was; a man in his late twenties, stood in a kitchen at three in the morning, wearing jammies, and trying not to burn his bread while simultaneously trying not to burst in tears. He was the poster child of pathetic.

He must have waited too long to take out the bread, what’s with his being lost in self-loathing and all, because the next he knew the machine was smoking and he had to scramble to pull its cord out of the socket. Praying all the while that his mum wouldn’t wake up and see what a mess he was.

After waiting for a few moments with his breath held, Philip sighed in strangled relief that he couldn’t hear his mother’s footsteps coming to check on him. He removed the toast and placed it on a plate, then went to sit by the table, staring at the charred pieces with a lump in his throat and a sweet voice echoing in his head.

 _“We could buy you a new one.”_ The voice offered.

 _But I don’t want a new one,_ Philip thought angrily –irrationally- to himself, feeling the telltale wetness of tears starting to trail down his cheeks. _I want the old one back. I_ just _want the old one back._

His mum woke up two hours later to the sound of her son’s sobs. She found him sitting at the kitchen table, with tear streaked cheeks and the remnants of burnt bread crumbled in his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope that you guys liked this. I've never tried writing Philip before, and I can only hope that he didn't sound too OOC here. Please let me know what you think, and You can leave me prompts here or at sulkybbarnes on tumblr (where I run a blog full of tears and regret).
> 
> Kudos/comments would be most appreciated. Tell me what you think!


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